‘I don’t know what this is about, Guy. How could I? How could I know anything about this? It’s fucking insane!’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said, his tone insistent. ‘And you do know about it. It was your idea. You made me do it.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know why you’re denying it. It’s not helpful, Annabelle. It doesn’t help us to move on with our plans.’

Our plans? She felt lost, bewildered by what he was saying. They had no shared plans. She had no idea what he was talking about.

‘I have to say, I’m a little disappointed,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’ve gone to all this effort and we’re finally here, together, like you’ – he pointed at her, his arm fully outstretched, and his voice rose – ‘wanted, and now you pretend you don’t know what’s happening? I mean, are you trying to ruin this deliberately? Because that’s how it seems.’

She sat and looked at him. She had no idea what to say next.

He took a deep breath. ‘Shall we start again?’

Even though she felt like she was lost in a thick fog with no sense of which way safety lay, starting again sounded like a good idea, because the terror was back, and the relief that it was Guy had vanished. This was not the Guy she knew. That Guy was gone, replaced by someone she did not recognize at all.

‘OK. Let’s start again.’

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the right answer, Annabelle. Well done.’

Wynne

DI Wynne walked into DSI Marie Ryan’s office and closed the door. Ryan looked up from the file she was reading. ‘Take a seat.’

‘No thanks,’ Wynne said. ‘I’ll stand. I’ve been at my desk for the last hour or two,’ she said. ‘Good to get the blood flowing.’

‘So, what do you have?’

Wynne looked at the window, then back at DSI Ryan. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘We have absolutely nothing. Unless you count questions. We have plenty of those.’

‘Take me through them.’

‘Why, first of all. Not why does someone want Annabelle Westbrook – that could be revenge or obsession or another reason, although that leads us to who, and we have no suspects – but why kidnap the kids, and then exchange them for the wife?’

Ryan nodded. ‘All that does is complicate matters. If it’s revenge or obsession, why not just kidnap her and be done?’

‘Right. There must be a reason to involve the kids.’

‘Indeed, but it may be so specific we won’t be able to guess it.’

‘Which makes investigating it a challenge.’

‘What if the kidnapper wanted to tie her in psychologically? Make her complicit.’

‘We thought about that. But how does this make her part of it? She had no choice.’